Distribution, Characteristics and Reproductive Performance of Ban swine Raised in Hoa Binh Province

Abstract

Ban swine is raised by households of ethnic minorities, especially Muong, in the remote communes of Hoa Binh province. This breed has  several advantages such as good resistance to diseases, good quality of meat. This research was conducted from July 2007 to June 2008 to determine characteristics, distribution, reproductive performance of this swine breed through by the  conventional method of survey such as recording body weight data and measuring the length and chest size on weekly and monthly bases. Ban swine has a black color of coat with white feet and belly. Their hairs are long and hard. They have small and erected ears, small face, long mouth, and weak back. The age at first farrowing was 13 months. The reproductive performance was low with a litter size of 5.58 for the first litter and  9.06 for the fourth (P<0.05). The average birth weight  was 0.43 kg, weaning weight at 86.33 days of age was 5.05 kg. The farrowing interval  was very long (241 days) with 40.46 days from weaning to  re-breeding The average monthly gain was 1.49 kg for  the suckling period. Feed Converson Ratio (FCR)  up to weaning was very high (19 kg  concentrate and 57.4 kg of forage/kg live weight)